The study measured satisfaction among 9,767 customers who had used their current smartphone for less than one year, and looks at performance, physical design, features and ease of operation. The firm said Apple "performs particularly well in physical design and ease of operation."

Quote:

The Wireless Smartphone Satisfaction Study finds that satisfaction among smartphone customers is 796 (on a 1,000-point scale), an increase of 22 points from 2012. This improvement is likely due to a growing array of new features and services being offered that are providing a seamless product experience between the operating system functions and third-party apps. While satisfaction in all factors of the smartphone customer experience increases from 2012, satisfaction has increased the most in performance (26 points), as a few key attributes, such as operating system reliability, processing speed and video/camera picture quality, have improved significantly.

Strange that despite all the "lack of innovation" (and lack of a 27 inch screen) people are still the most happy with iPhones!

Thus the reason for the iphone 5s. The average user does not care. And the Apple fan will buy regardless. Apple essentially created a cult of followers.
I would not be surprised if iOS remains basically the same because of this recognition. Why change something if people don't complain?

It's actually much higher than a 6.9% difference because the lowest score is not 0% and the highest score is not 100%. This is actually a pretty big gap.

Now, I think you can argue that part of the is merely due to ingrained psychology. If you bought a luxury product that was touted as the best and you paid more for it too, you're much less likely to be willing to be critical about it. On the other hand, Apple has earned that halo for the time being.